Landscape is a good subject for notan-composition, to be treated at first as a design, afterward as a picture. Its irregular spacings contrast well with the symmetries of pattern, and when tones are played over them the effects are new and strange, stimulating to further research into the mysteries of tone. Such an exercise leads to the appreciation of landscape pictures, and is an introduction to pencil and charcoal sketching from nature, to monotypes and etching.

Notan in landscape, a harmony of tone-relations, must not be mistaken for light-and-shadow which is only one effect or accident. Like all other facts of external nature, light-and-shadow must be expressed in art-form. The student under the spell of the academic dictum “Paint what you see and as you see it” feels that he must put down every accidental shadow “just as it is in nature” or be false to himself and false to art. He finds later that accurate record is good and right in studies or sketches but may be wrong in a picture or illustration. No accidents enter into pictures, but every line, light, and dark must be part of a deliberate design.

Light-and-shade is a term referring to modelling or imitation of solidity; the study of it by drawing white casts and still life tends to put attention upon facts rather than upon experience in structure. It does not help one to appreciate tone-values in pictures. Such drawing is worth while as pure representation and the discipline of it contributes to mastery of technique, but it is absurd to prescribe this or life drawing as a training for the landscape painter. Its influence is only indirect, for modeling is of secondary importance in Painting, the art of two dimensions.

When a painter works for roundness and solidity he enters the province of his brother the sculptor. In typical paintings, like Giotto's frescoes at Assisi, Masaccio's “Tribute Money,” Piero della Francesca's work at Arezzo, the compositions of the Vivarini, the Bellini and Titian, and even the Strozzi portrait by Raphael, the modelling is subordinate to the greater elements of proportion and dark-and-light.

In a mural painting extreme roundness is a fatal defect, as illustrated in the Pantheon at Paris, where Puvis de Chavannes and his contemporaries have put pictorial designs upon the walls. Puvis created a mosaic of colored spaces intended to beautify the wall; charm of color and tone, poetry and illusion of landscape possess the beholder long before he even thinks of the special subjects. The [pg 70] other painters made their figures stand out in solid modelling, replacing composition with sculpturesque realities. From these you turn away unsatisfied. I am not arguing for the entire omission of shadows and modelling—they have their place—but am insisting that flat relations of tone and color are of first importance; they are the structural frame, while gradation and shading are the finish. To begin with rounding up forms in light and shade, especially in landscape, is to reverse the natural order, ignore structure, and confuse the mind. The academic system has adopted the word “decorate” for flat tone relations and non-sculpturesque effects, as if everything not standing out in full relief must belong to decoration. This use of the word is misleading to the student; we do not speak of music and poetry as “decorative”. Lines, tones and colors may be used to decorate something, but they may be simply beautiful in themselves, in which case they are no more decorative than music. This word should be dropped from the art vocabulary.

EXERCISE

Choose a landscape with a variety of large and small spaces.

1. Compose this within a border (see Chap. VI.) and when the spacing is good trace with the brush on several sheets of Japanese paper.

Next try the effect of painting certain spaces black, or dark gray, or some dark color like blue. The other spaces may be left white, or painted light gray or with light color. Landscapes are capable of a great many two-value arrangements but not all such will be fine. Strive for harmony rather than number, variety or strangeness. Compare your set and select the best.

2. Compose the landscape into borders of different proportions; then vary each of these in two values. The illustrations, No. 47, make clear these two ways of working. The student may use the examples given here, then sketch his own subjects from nature.

SPOTTING,—NOTAN OF PICTURES.

When the art student sketches the masses of dark-and-light in pictures, the “Spotting” as he calls it, he is studying Notan of two values, but in an aimless way. He is hunting for some rule or secret scheme of shading,—an “ornament,” “bird's wing,” a “line;” vain search, for no two works can have the same plan, each has its own individual line and tone.

On the other hand much can be learned by studying the masters' plans of composition,—not to imitate but to appreciate the harmony. One good way to accomplish this is to sketch in the massing, in two values. Choose a number of masterpieces, ancient and modern, and blot in the darks in broad flat tones. This will reveal the general notan-scheme of each picture (pp. 71, 72).

ORIGINAL PICTORIAL COMPOSITION IN TWO VALUES.

The student is now ready for original [pg 71]

[pg 72] work with landscape, still life or figures. Sketching from nature with brush and ink is a means of interpreting subjects in a very broad way, obliging one to select and reject, to keep only the essentials. It cultivates appreciation of texture and character and brings out the power of doing much with little,—of making a few vigorous strokes convey impressions of form and complexity. It leads to oil painting where the brush-touch must be charged with meaning; it is of direct practical value in illustration as such sketches are effective and easily reproduced. It is almost the only method for painting on pottery, as the absorbent glaze admits of no gradation, emendation or erasure; the touch must be decisive and characterful. Examples of brush-sketching from nature are given in No. 48 on opposite page.